The 4th edition of SET, Tehran’s annual experimental music festival, is dedicated entirely to artistic dialogue with Berlin. The 5-day SET X CTM event takes place 26-30 July 2018 in Tehran, and has been conceived and organized in close collaboration with CTM.

The collaboration between SET and CTM started in 2016, when support from Goethe-Institut enabled the two partners to commission Sacred Horror in Design, a pioneering collaboration between Tehran-based artist Sote, and Berlin-based artist and Thom Yorke/Nicolas Jaar collaborator Tarik Barri, which subsequently led to the first showcase of Iranian electronic music at CTM 2017 in Berlin.

With SET X CTM, the two festivals intensify their efforts to foster cultural dialogue and to strengthen the growing network between Tehran and Berlin. Co-funded by the Goethe-Institut’s International Coproduction Fund, the festival will see the premiere of two new commissions that bring together artists from the two cities alongside a range of performances from Berlin-based and Iranian artists.

SET Experimental Art Events is an artist-run festival founded in 2015 with a specific focus on experimental music and audio/visual performance. The festival’s main emphasis is on styles of music or visuals which cannot be contained by mainstream culture’s established boundaries. SET aims to bring together individuals who, up until recent years, have found themselves out of place in the dominant music and arts canon. The festival allows them to congregate in a DIY and collective atmosphere that can help bring their ideas to fruition. In the long run, SET hopes to contribute in building a solid network of experimental artists and audiences that will act as backbone for an ever-expanding scene in Tehran.

By bringing together established and emerging experimental artists from Iran and Europe, SET aims to increase dialogue between not-so-distant cultures. These efforts contribute to the development of a more inclusive worldwide scene, and encourage the sharing and exchange of artistic practices and ideas.

DAY I Programme

Concert | Azadi Hall
mHz (live AV)
Umchunga
Sote + Tarik Barri (AV)

Mo H. Zareei aka mHz is an Iranian sound artist and an electronic musician based in Wellington, New Zealand. Using custom-built software and hardware, his experiments with sound cover a wide range from electronic compositions to kinetic sound-sculptures and audiovisual installations. His work aims to highlight the beauty in the basics of sound and light production, and reductionist audiovisual elements that draw inspiration from physical and architectural principles. With Doctorate degrees in Physics and Sonic Arts, plus a BFA in Music Technology he has published research in journals from Organised Sound (Cambridge University Press) and Leonardo Music Journal (MIT Press), and been featured on Streaming Museum, Creative Applications, and Creators Project, and Fast Company Design. Zareei will be releasing his debut full length album on Experimedia, under the moniker mHz, in late 2018.

Umchunga is Nima Pourkarimi, a composer/producer based in Tehran. He delved into many styles of experimental electronic music through the years but mostly noisy atmospheres and drones . He started experimenting with computers in 2006 and, via sonic voyages concentrated in noisy atmospheres and drones, has collaborated with many artists in his hometown. He has followed-up his debut album Should Have Been Done By Now (Hibernate Recordings, 2015) with Maniacal Physiognomy in 2018, an is awaiting the release of The Brightest Winter Sun, a collaboration with Siavash Amini (Flaming Pines, July 2018).

Tehran-based Ata Ebtekar aka Sote has been published by a range of respected labels, from Warp Records and Sub Rosa, to Morphine, Repitch, and Opal Tapes among others. Global cultural exposure through transmigration has been a significant stimulant for his aesthetics. Sote's goal is to create unique and timeless pieces of music that are not available anywhere except in his mind. He believes that music is a cultural habit of sound and anti-sound (silence). Therefore, he generates music without a specific culture, which he believes to be "the other sound.” Sote will perform with celebrated Berlin-based visual artist and Thom Yorke/Nicolas Jaar collaborator Tarik Barri.

Workshop | Emkan Gallery
Rainer Kohlberger

Berlin-based visual artist and designer Rainer Kohlberger focuses his work on algorithmically generated graphics and is keenly interested in the potential for interactivity in generative design. Brimming with geometric shapes and evolving patters, his images are reminiscent of Gameboy interfaces and the frantic manoeuvres of Tetris blocks. The artist converts his graphics into live performances, installations, films, and mobile apps.

Kohlberger will talk about his work, giving details of some of his strategies, concepts, and working methods, both from technical and artistic perspectives. The workshop will then open into an active discussion with participants. Depending on audience interest, the workshop can focus more on Kohlberger’s audiovisual concert works, or on his films.

This workshop is limited to 20 participants. Registration information is available via the SET Festival website.